Hypersonic Thunder: A Novel of the Jet Age (2 page)

Now Shannon was blinking away the tears coursing down his face. He hated himself for crying, but the thought of everyone going free, of them seeing their families again, while he stayed here, rotting alive, was impossible to bear. He was wearing the same filthy, black pajamas that he had worn for months. That was the sure sign that he was not going home, not now, not ever.

Shannon looked out at the grubby yard. There was some sort of disturbance—the POWs were refusing to get on the drab blue buses. He could see the Rabbit, his own particular nemesis, railing at someone—it had to be Alvarez or Robby Risner, the men who had been here longest.

The Rabbit turned and left the yard, and Tom slumped down, unwilling to watch anymore.

I’ve got to get hold of myself. I cannot give in now. They cannot beat me now. Not after all this misery.
He had started his mental rosary, the prayers that had kept him sane for so many months.

Fifteen minutes passed before his cell door burst open and the Rabbit came in, furious and bearing an armload of clothing. As always,
the Rabbit’s hair was closely cut, his uniform pristine, his lean body erect.

“Put these on. Your friends won’t leave without you.”

Tom reached out for the clothes carefully, certain that the Rabbit was toying with him. He tossed his filthy black pajama top to the side and pulled on a shirt, his bruised and battered fingers having trouble with the buttons. What a magnificent group of men his fellow prisoners were, renouncing their own freedom to save a man they had never seen, never talked to.

Only when he slid into the dark blue trousers did he allow himself to hope that his long agony was coming to an end. He was going home. He only wished Pavone was going with him.

March 17, 1973,
Palos Verdes, California

V
ANCE
S
HANNON STARED
at the television set. For so many months it had been a source of pain to him, watching the debacle unfold in Vietnam, watching the miserable, long-haired peaceniks demonstrating against the United States, against their own country, by God, the worthless bunch of traitors.

But now television was an unbelievable source of hope. It had picked up the dot of an airplane in the distance, panning over the crowd of people waiting at Travis Air Force Base to greet the returning prisoners of war. Almost everyone in Shannon’s family was there to greet Tom when he stepped off the plane. Nancy and V. R. were there, and so were Harry, Tom’s twin brother, and his wife, Anna. Vance Shannon’s wife Jill had stayed home to nurse him, as she had done for so long.

“By God, Jill, I should have gone, I shouldn’t have missed this.”

Jill patted him on the shoulder as she had the previous ten times he raised his plaintive cry.

“No, honey, it’s best you are here. Let Tom and Nancy have their get-together, and he’ll be home to see you in a day or two. After six long years, you can wait another few days.”

It was not like Shannon to wait for anything. An ace in World War I, he had become one of the top test pilots in the United States, ranking with Eddie Allen, Jim McAvoy, and Vance Breese. Afterward, building on his test pilot reputation, he had started a one-man consulting firm that quickly grew into an industry legend. His twin sons, Tom and Harry, had helped, but his real forte had been in picking innovative young leaders, giving them a piece of the business, and letting them run with it. Now Aerospace Consultants had offices in eight cities and was a major force in industries no one had dreamed of when he had been flying his SPAD on the Western Front, or even when he was testing Mustangs for North American. Aerospace Consultants and its subsidiaries were a force in avionics, simulators, precision guided munitions, and the executive jet business.

At seventy-eight, Shannon was in better shape than he had any right to be. He’d survived a severe stroke, and by sheer willpower had brought himself back to the point that he was still of real value to the company he founded—at least on the airplane and engine side. Most of the rest he left to Bob Rodriquez, a twelve-victory ace in Korea, and an electronics genius who had carried the firm to new levels that he and his boys, smart as they were, could never have reached.

“I wish I could pick out Nancy in the crowd. She was wearing that fancy hat with the feather on the side, but I still can’t see her. I’d love to see her reaction when Tom comes off the plane.”

“And I’d really love to see Tom’s reaction when he sees her and V. R.”

March 17, 1973
Travis Air Force Base, California

N
ANCY
S
HANNON HELD
tight to V. R.’s arm. At twenty, young Vance Robert was as tall as his father had been, six-one, and built just like him. On leave from the Air Force Academy to meet his father, V. R. searched his mother’s face to see how she was bearing up.

He had been fourteen when his father, the old warhorse, had returned to the Air Force and volunteered for combat duty in Vietnam.
Tom Shannon had blazed brightly across the Vietnamese skies, shooting down four—and perhaps five—North Vietnamese MiGs before being shot down and imprisoned for six interminable years. In the meantime Nancy Shannon had soldiered on, taking on more and more responsibility with the business, pushed by both Harry and Vance Shannon, who wanted to see her occupied, her mind off the tortures they all knew that Tom was enduring.

V. R. tried to drink in everything, the surging crowd, emotions bubbling like champagne, the endless waiting as the airplane bringing his father changed from a tiny dot against the gray overcast of the sky to this huge Lockheed C-141 now slowly taxiing up to the carefully plotted area where the prisoners would be received.

It was a beautiful aircraft. V. R. noted the tail number, 60177, and the name on the nose, “City of San Bernardino.” It was impossible to believe that the father he loved so much was just two hundred yards away, inside the strong white fuselage of the C-141.

The aircraft moved into position, the band played the Air Force song, and the waiting relatives surged at the velvet ropes restraining them. There was going to be a ceremony—naturally, this was the Air Force, and the returning men deserved it. Everyone had been briefed that the senior officer would get off first, say a few words, then be followed down by the others, each man to salute and be saluted and then released to the embrace of his family.

His mother’s grip tightened on his arm as the big door of the C-141 opened at last. A long joyous roar erupted when the first man stepped out and said a few words. Neither Nancy nor V. R. noticed, for their eyes were fixed on the vacant spot where Tom would first appear. As each man hit the door, their hearts leaped, then fell back. In what seemed hours, fifteen former POWs, looking thin but surprisingly fit in their brand-new uniforms, had given their salutes and then been swamped by their loving families.

Finally Tom appeared, moved down the steps, saluted, and then turned to hobble toward them. Nancy dropped V. R.’s arm and raced to him, folding him in an embrace, tears flowing. V. R. walked up slowly behind her, smiling, feeling happy and strangely safe for the first time since his father had left.

March 17, 1973
Palos Verdes, California

“T
HERE HE IS
.”

Vance leaped up from his chair, grabbed Jill, and squeezed.

“He’s moving a little slow, but he looks pretty good.”

“Look, there’s Nancy! Where’s V. R.?”

Jill squeezed his arm affectionately saying, “Look, just behind him, that tall, good-looking cadet.” Harry and Anna were also visible now, coming up the ramp.

By this time Tom was embracing V. R. as well, and then the camera cut to the C-141 fuselage as the next man appeared.

Vance flopped back in his chair, yelling, “Get some champagne, Jill, we need a drink. By God, I’m glad that I lived to see this day.”

Jill had already popped a bottle of her favorite champagne, Korbel, and handed Vance a glass, knowing he’d barely sip it.

They basked in the glow of the television set, watching the other returning prisoners of war greet their families, sensing the tidal wave of emotion surging across the Travis flight line, senior officers weeping unashamedly, children clutching their fathers’ legs, long separated husbands and wives kissing with an intense fervor.

There was a brief glimpse of Nancy and Tom walking hand in hand, V. R. following behind them, his face radiant with pleasure, and behind him, Harry and Anna, looking on with a combination of concern for Tom’s condition and happiness for his release.

The scene switched and Jill said, “I hope they will never have to suffer again. I hope they will all be happy.”

Vance reached up behind him and patted her arm. “We’ve had such a nice life and my kids have had so much trouble, it doesn’t seem fair, does it? Harry has to be concerned about Anna falling off the wagon all the time; it’s affected his work. You know he rarely flies anymore. Can you imagine that, a Shannon not flying? And Nancy—she’s a marvel in the business, but a bone in Harry’s throat. And her practically running the business will kill Tom. You know how proud he is. He couldn’t take the rivalry from Bob Rodriquez; he’ll never be able to stand Nancy running things, no matter how much he loves her.”

Jill was stunned. Vance had not commented on the family or the business for weeks.

Obviously agitated, he went on. “And I haven’t mentioned Bob and Mae! There’s no way that Bob’s going to be able to work with Nancy. I’ve created a monster, and now I’m too old to do anything about it.”

He looked up at her and smiled. “Fooled you, didn’t I? You thought I was out of it. Well, I am, but I’m not completely senile, not yet, and I can see the handwriting on the wall.”

Jill nodded. She agreed with him completely, but didn’t want to get him more excited than he was. Funny, here Vance was, pushing eighty, and absolutely right in everything he said.

“Don’t let it get you down, Jill. We’ve had a good long run, and I may have a few more years, and I’m not going to let this bother me, no matter how it turns out. The main thing is Tom is out of that rotten prison camp, that’s really all that matters to me now.”

March 17, 1973
Niceville, Florida

B
OB
R
ODRIQUEZ SAT
in his cramped apartment, staring at the television set, his hands gripping the grubby armrests of his chair as he watched his friend, his rival, his enemy, turn and stumble into Nancy Shannon’s open arms.

Tears coursed down Rodriquez’s deeply tanned face. He had known the returning prisoner of war for more than twenty years and could not believe that this gaunt, limping shadow of a man was actually Tom Shannon. He spoke aloud to himself, as he did too often nowadays. “God, how happy he must be. And Nancy and V. R., too.” The sight of Tom Shannon’s son reminded him of his own son, Robert Jr.—Rod, as most people called him. Rod was another precious person he had lost to his work.

Then his thoughts went to Vance, wondering how he was taking this. He wasn’t in the crowd, must be home in Palos Verdes. Thank God he lived long enough to see it.

“I’ll call him later—he’s probably more choked up than I am.”

A commercial came on and Rodriquez shut the set off. It was the one possession he prized, built with his own hands, and now carted around the country with him, wherever he went.

And he went everywhere, carrying the flag that Vance Shannon had planted so many years ago, when he ran a one-man company, flying first flights in new aircraft for a laughably low fee. Shannon’s firm had grown in the post World War II armament boom, and he had brought Rodriquez in as a partner, over the objections of his two sons, Tom and Harry. Both sons were hurt that their father had violated all his previous practice by doing something without discussing it with them.

Later, neither of them—not even Tom, the more bitter of the two—could deny that Rodriquez had vastly expanded the business, taking it into disciplines that were unknown and even unknowable to the Shannons. Rodriquez combined his knowledge of electronics with an uncanny ability to find partner firms. He developed ideas such as three-axis simulators or precision weapons, built prototypes, got the government interested, and then found a bigger company to partner with. The result was a constantly growing business, with welcome streams of income coming back to Shannon’s firm.

Vance Shannon had recognized his value early, even though he almost never understood exactly what Rodriquez was doing. Shannon took the firm public, and completed a series of name changes, each one reflecting its expanding scope. Rodriquez had ridden the crest of the wave and was now president and chief engineer of Aerospace Unlimited. Nancy Shannon, Tom’s second wife, ran the parent company, which had been renamed “Vance Shannon, Incorporated” to honor the old man. Nancy gave Rodriquez a great deal of independence, but in the end, she was calling the shots, with the support of the board of directors.

Bob had been living at 1550 Foster Road, Apartment 1C, on and off for six months. He spent at least half his time traveling, making it increasingly tough to supervise the rapidly growing interests of the firm Vance Shannon had established for him. This apartment was convenient, about three miles from the flight line at Eglin Air Force Base, where the latest version of his laser-guided bomb was being tested.

Until three weeks ago, Bob had been living like some broken-down cold-call vacuum cleaner salesman, getting by with a mattress
on the floor in the bedroom, his prized television plopped on a box in the living room. The only other furniture was a stool at the breakfast bar, where he ate miserable meals that ranged from a low of a frozen dinner to the relative high of Wheaties cereal and milk that was still fresh.

Then Mae had called, saying she was coming for one last visit. Panicking, he called Barron Rents, furnishing the place with a single order over the telephone, hoping to mask his miserable bachelor existence from her. Now he flopped back in the plaid recliner, the least offensive thing in the mud-ugly combination of cheap furniture and universal draperies. Everything was glaringly new, unmatched and unloved, and the dismal ensemble told his lonely story even better than a mattress on the floor might have.